(pages 110-127)

More than once over the last couple of weeks, I’ve described this book as “a bit like Lolita, only crap.”  Of course, the important thing about Lolita is that it has an unreliable narrator, a guy who convinces himself that he’s a bold romantic hero, only to realise near the end of the book that he’s actually just a scuzzy little sexual predator who has ruined the life of the girl he claims to love.  I’m looking forward to Hubert and the first-person narrator having a moment like that.  I hope they’re going to, anyway, because at the moment girls is looking an awful lot like a literary version of this.

Speaking of the first-person narrator, I’m still not sure what to call him.  I’m torn between King Dong (because of his great thoughts on how men have more in common with gorillas than with women) and Business Cat.

Hubert’s employees gossip about him behind his back.  You would too, if your boss was Hubert.  Specifically, they talk about the time he fell out with his business partner, who then shot himself.  Honestly, that strikes me as the least gossip-worthy thing about Hubert, but to each his own.

We also find out that Hubert’s wife has left him.  Good for her!

Something about Paris killing Patroclus in The Iliad.  You know, I think I’m going to skip the Iliad quotations from now on, unless they’re particularly juicy.  They rarely have anything to do with what’s actually going on in the story.  Such as it is.

Hubert is travelling the world, eating guinea pigs.  As if we didn’t already know that he was history’s greatest monster.  Oh, and he also finds kinship wherever he goes with other men who like to sleep with teenage girls.  It’s nice to find something that transcends cultural borders.

Business Cat (it’s the classier option) talks about his wife kissing him goodbye in the car instead of in front of his mates, who might make fun of him.  The he talks about the origins of the C-word, and how it was Homer who started using it as an insult for women, so blame him.  It’s funny; where I come from, the C-word is almost always used as an insult for men, not women.  In fact, for a few years in the early 2000s, I only ever heard it applied to Tony Blair.  It was like his own personal insult.

Also, the C-word is related to “cunning,” which makes sense because women are crafty bitches.  Trufax.

Hubert has a female friend.  I know- I’m as surprised as you are.  The book does specify that she’s the only one, though.  I mean, let’s not go nuts.  He’s surprised to find that he’s attracted to her, even though she’s his age.  Surreal!

He doesn’t enjoy sleeping with her, though, so that’s alright.  It turns out that she also has a thing for teenagers, and enjoys it when her boyfriends end up sleeping with Hubert’s girlfriends.  The phrase “wind them up and watch them go” popped into my head when I read that bit, and I’m still shuddering.  But still, Hubert looks down his nose at her because she just sleeps with teenagers for “aesthetics,” not for philosophical reasons like he does.  Hubert the hipster perv!

Hubert denies hanging around outside local schools.  He very specifically denies it.  Why would you suggest such a thing?  Honestly…

Let’s see…  Men admire villains because they dominate people…  Hubert used to believe that his face would stay that way if the wind changed…  Business Cat associates his wife with temples…  I’m not seeing much of a connecting theme, here.  See, this kind of thing is what I mean by “like Lolita, only crap.”  Lolita had an actual plot.

Finally, Hubert meets a gay person who is into teenagers as well, which makes Hubert decide to extend the hand of brotherhood.  It’s a beautiful story of social acceptance.